The Thousand Winds That Blow
by Fade131
Summary: Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep.


Prompt: The centuries-old Watson family legend.

"One day children, one of you may meet a man named Sherlock Holmes. It will be your duty to take care of him, to protect him and to help him with the Work.

Never let him know the real truth, however: that he is more than he believes himself to be, that he has lived longer than he realizes and that one day he will disappear and only reappear when he is truly needed."

"Does he ever remember us Nana?"

"Never, Harry. That is the worst of it. We are always new to him."

"Has he ever come back to the same person after he disappears Nana?"

"No, John. But if one of you are very lucky you may get years with him."

...

..

_At five, they were the Best Stories Ever._

"Nana, tell me again!"

"Now, John, it's time for bed."

The little boy pouted, sandy hair falling in front of his eyes. His sister immediately crawled back out from under her blankets, grinning widely.

"Yes, tell as another story, Nana! Didn't you meet him? Please, just one last story before bed!"

Their grandmother smiled and shook her head, sitting down on the edge of John's bed. "Oh, alright. I suppose I could tell you one. Just one, mind you." She adopted a stern look and Harry and John giggled and nodded until she smiled indulgently once more.

"When I was a young girl—"

"How old were you?"

"Harry, don't make her stop!"

The girl frowned and crossed her arms. "I just wanted to know."

"Now, children," Nana Watson murmured, gently smoothing John's hair away from his forehead and putting her arm around Harry's hunched shoulders. "I'm going to tell the story, don't you fret. I suppose I was about seventeen years old, when I met Sherlock Holmes the first time…"

..

_At eleven, it was the greatest game._

"I'll be Samuel Watson and you be Sherlock."

"What? I can't be Sherlock."

"John, don't be ridiculous."

"_You _don't be ridiculous! I want to play a different one, anyway."

"We always play Therese and the Sharpshooter. I hate being the girl."

"You ARE a girl, _Harriet_!"

Nana Watson leaned against the doorframe, one hand on her hip and a stern look on her face. The children immediately stopped shouting. "What have I told you two about fighting?"

"But Nana—"

"He called me—"

"No, I'll have none of it. Can't you play nice? How about Augusta and Capability Watson, hm? Now that was a story."

John frowned. "But Sherlock Holmes isn't in that one!"

"He comes in at the end," Harry pointed out, elbowing him in the side.

He shoved her back. "But the stories are supposed to be about him—"

"Who said that?" The children paused in the middle of pushing each other, and their grandmother smiled. "I think the stories where the Watsons save the day are the best, myself. Sherlock may be behind it all, but sometimes we get to be heroes too."

..

_At sixteen, he needed to be convinced._

John frowned curiously at the package on his desk. It was wrapped in plaid Christmas paper, with a little green bow and no tag. When he opened it, he knew who it must be from.

"Nana, what's this?"

She glanced up from her crossword, peering at him over her thick glasses. A fond smile passed over her features as she noticed the leather-bound notebook in his hand. It was old and brown, with a thick piece of twine tied around it to keep it shut. Still, pieces of faded and yellowing paper stuck out of the sides. In thin black lettering on the cover, it read simply, 'Watson.'

"Come sit," she said calmly, pushing up her glasses and patting the seat beside her. Sighing, John dutifully sat beside her.

"If it's just a Christmas present, Nana, why didn't you put it under the tree with the rest…?"

"Because I wanted you to open it yourself. I want you to read it. I want you to understand."

Frowning slightly, John undid the neat knot of twine and opened the journal. He flipped through the pages; the handwriting was all different, with notations and doodles in the margins. The first few pages were in Gaelic, with translations in various hands written in between the lines. Several pages almost fell out of the middle, and he caught them quickly.

"That's him," she said, smiling and taking one of the free pages from him. They were covered in sketches, done in charcoal pencil, of a man with curly hair and sharp cheekbones, whose eyes were piercing even on paper.

"_That's_ Sherlock Holmes?"

A fond expression crossed her face as she traced the line of his cheek. "He's a great man, Sherlock Holmes…"

..

_Just like she told him, the call came when he least expected it._

He didn't feel the bullet.

One moment he was moving, and the next he wasn't. Part of his mind cataloged that he'd been shot, but it seemed unimportant. There was something else to focus on, something far more vital. The twist in his gut; the sudden pounding in his head; the overwhelming, dreadful sensation of falling…

Someone grabbed him, dragged him to his feet, urged him to move.

He still couldn't feel it. He knew it should hurt – or perhaps he was in shock? – but there was nothing. There was only the other feeling, the dread and pain from another source. He tried to understand it, tried to categorize it, and then it came to him.

_It is not as an awakening, nor the sudden memory of an old friend,_ the notebook said, in neat, spiked writing. _When he needed me, I felt it like a knife to the heart. It was as if I watched my dearest companion struck down before me and could not reach him. That is the only comparable emotion, to this terrible connection. I would have done anything, in that moment, to reach him. To give him the help he required._

But he could not do anything. He could only soldier on.

..

_The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street._

His mind is reeling. And oh, it was such a strange thing to be known so well and yet completely unknown at the same time. Sherlock Holmes, the man who can deduce every detail of his life in a few short minutes, and yet has no idea…

In his mind's eye, the notebook burns brightly from its place in the desk drawer.

The problem isn't the lack of choice. John Watson was never a man to skip out on duty, and this is the highest, most secret honor of the Watson family. No, he doesn't mind that it isn't really his decision to take a flat with Sherlock Holmes and spend his days solving crimes.

The problem is, of course, the man himself.

He didn't understand the way the various generations of Watsons had spoken of Sherlock Holmes in the notebook. There was precious little and yet so much information, so many useless details and so few important clues. But now, John thinks perhaps he's going to find out. Sherlock Holmes is the sort of man you can't walk away from (_but he will walk away from you_), the kind who has no friends (_and yet you'll be his only friend, the closest_), a brilliant, difficult, maddening sort of man.

John doesn't want to understand the agony of that friendship, to know intimately why they speak of Sherlock Holmes with painful worship.

But he will.

..

_Goodbye, John._

John tried to tell himself that he was lucky. He was the chosen companion. He was allowed precious time with Sherlock Holmes – _precious little time_ – and he should be grateful.

He isn't.

Every day it replays in his head. Every day Sherlock Holmes takes the fall off of St Barts and every day it hurts more. Every night, empty blue eyes stare up out of a blood-streaked face.

Every morning, he has to remember that Sherlock Holmes can't die.

But there isn't proof, and John finds that is the hardest part. If he knew for certain that the man was simply gone, as he had left every Watson previously, if he _knew_ that someday Sherlock would return, he thinks it would be okay. But that is the one thing he finds it hard to believe. There was no pulse, after all. He felt it. There was nothing behind those piercing eyes. John Watson has seen dead men more times than he can count. If only he could believe. If only he had some reassurance.

"_You remember what she said,"_ Harry tells him on the phone, and she's sympathetic but she doesn't understand. How could she? _"He always leaves. And he can't come back to the same person. He's somewhere, and someday, when he's needed most, he'll find the next Watson, and it'll be fine. You just have to move on."_

Impossible. John can't imagine him with another Watson. Would it be his son? His granddaughter? How many generations until Sherlock was needed again? But then, he couldn't imagine a Sherlock who didn't remember him. He couldn't be the same.

That, too, was horrible. Sherlock was alive somewhere, and didn't remember a single thing about him.

..

_It was the longest three years of his life._

It shouldn't have taken all three to realize he'd broken the one rule that nearly every predecessor had written down. Despite the repetition, each succeeding owner of the notebook had felt obligated to reiterate, in various forms, the same commandment. Scribbled in the margins in Gaelic on the third page, expounded on in detail in a feminine hand, a short sharp note in the spiked, neat writing that made up a full quarter of the book, one thing above all was constant. _Under no circumstances,_ his grandmother's delicate print reminded, on the last full page, _under absolutely no circumstances, should ever fall in love with Sherlock Holmes._

And John knew why they said it over and over again. Because over and over again, they had failed to follow it. If he ever wrote his own addition to the notebook – and he can't imagine it, can't even think what it would say, somehow even three years gone it's so fresh that he can only think _please, please let him come back to me_ – then he too, would warn against it.

If only to reassure the next generation that every single one of them has failed in this, since the very beginning.

..

_And he only reappears, when he is truly needed._

The steps up to their old flat are harder to climb every year, but for the past two he's come on the anniversary of the day they moved in together – _not the day he died, never then, he can barely make it to the cemetery then_ – to sit in the empty flat, to talk to the skull, to have tea with Mrs. Hudson. She can't rent it out to someone else, she says, and Mycroft pays the rent, so 221B sits still and empty, dust gathering on once-used furniture, Sherlock's chemistry set still arrayed on the kitchen table, bullet holes still in the wall. Every year it is the same, and every year it hurts just as much.

John opens the door and drapes his coat over the arm of the couch, and frowns. Mrs. Hudson must have come up to clean, but he knows she doesn't come in the flat alone. The windows are open, curtains billowing in the wind. A laptop on the desk, papers scattered across the carpet by the wind, a cellphone on the mantel.

A clatter of noise from the kitchen, the tinkling crash of shattering glass.

"John, get the broom," calls a voice from the vicinity of the refrigerator, calmly demanding.

John Watson stays stock still in the living room, aware that his cane can't support all of his weight but unable to keep himself upright under the shock of it.

"John, I need the broom."

Something about how normal the situation seems snaps him out of it, but not enough.

"I've… I've told you, not to… you're always breaking something, and…"

Sherlock's in the doorway then – _Sherlock Holmes_– in his bathrobe, feet bare, hair so long that he keeps pushing the curls back out of his eyes – _those eyes, bright and full of unfathomable intelligence and __**life**_ – and he smiles. The blasted man smiles at him, and he looks so worn and thin and _happy_ to see him, and John doesn't understand how this could possibly be happening.

"Well? Welcome home."

He feels lightheaded. Sherlock's smile instantly dissolves, a frown creasing his brow.

"You've gone pale. I've shocked you, haven't I?" He catches John's elbow as he's speaking. "Sit, please, it's alright…"

He can feel himself being drawn towards the chair, loses his grip on the cane, but Sherlock's arms go around him before his leg can give out. He can feel Sherlock's breath against his temple.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and it's starting to feel real. "I'm so sorry, John."

When he can breathe again – it's a long time, honestly, and Sherlock makes him tea that tastes awful and perfect – it sinks in.

"How are you back?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How are you back? You went—you died, Sherlock, and now…"

"…the subterfuge was unfortunately necessary."

John frowns, but of course Sherlock wouldn't understand.

"Ah, you are referring to that notebook of yours."

Time seems to freeze. Sherlock Holmes is never meant to know.

But Sherlock gives him that look, of course you know where this is going, and leans forward in his chair, eyes focused on a point beyond his head. "Of all your possessions, you kept that the most well-hidden. I found it the second week after we moved in. Unintentional, I did not mean to invade your privacy, however certain papers were loose and fell out of it – sketches, I noticed, of myself, and you do not draw – and so I put them back… and noticed my name featured prominently. In fact, that it was entirely about me."

These things all make sense – it's impossible to hide anything from Sherlock, of course he would find it – but John is still frozen. One of the rules is that Sherlock must never know, can never know what he is, that even the Watsons can never truly know what Sherlock Holmes _is_.

"As I read it… I remembered. Only that I have read it before. Every time, I think. And every time I've gone along with it – clearly – but… no more."

"What? You can't just…"

Sherlock frowned and dropped to his knees before John's chair, taking his hands quickly. John shut his mouth instantly.

"For longer than I will ever know, things have gone this way. But when I left you, all I could think was that I had to come back."

"You never come back."

"No one has ever needed me to. No one has ever asked me to. No one but you. Isn't that right, John?"

"…I missed you, you bastard."

Sherlock laughed, and kissed him.


End file.
